The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus‎. 78.26 _{(spin me / revolutions)} 22:50, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Michni[edit]

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None of the sources comply with WP:HISTRS. Rattan Singh Jaggi is a litterateur active in the Language department of his institution, with no educational background in history, and primarily specializes in the literary analysis of Sikh holy books and writing hagiographies based off them, as well as translating texts into Hindi and Punjabi. https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/gurmat-scholar-dr-jaggi-chosen-for-padma-shri-8405050/ He is also used as the inline citation for the infobox which makes an astounding claim that 100 Sikhs defeated 5000 Afghans. Bobby Singh Bansal is a self proclaimed historian, with no educational training/credentials in history nor any peer reviewed books or journals or scholarly reviews of his work; his work was also self published (Hay House). The Punjabi Kosh is a vernacular source which also seems to be a hagiography. Autar Singh Sandhu is a WP:RAJ era source as it was written in 1935 and Sohan Singh Seetal is a poet and lyricist; both sources were also deprecated by an admin involved in South Asian topics. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 06:34, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Autar Singh Sandhu's book was explicitly deprecated by an admin here in the reliable sources noticeboard-[1]. "As Acroterion and Springee indicated, assessment of a source's reliability should take into account a multitude of factors. For example, the Nalwa book is likely an unacceptable source because of its age (1935), publisher, and lack of academic reviews and peer-reviewed articles written by its author (at least I didn't find any on a quick search). The author holding "only" an MA would be the least of the concerns because during the 1930s the PhD degree was not as well-established as it is now and many recognized experts and academics lacked it." Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 23:40, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Events, History, Military, Sikhism, Afghanistan, and India. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 10:15, 18 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. After relinquishing sources that are either poor or fail WP:V and in non-english language, two sources by historians Autar Singh Sandhu and Bobby Singh Bansal look OK to me where both pass WP:HISTRS. I cannot tell if Bansal is self proclaimed historian from what little quick research I found on him. Raj era is if it's written by Britons or Briton diplomats and administrators or under the guidance and review of Briton administrators. Some of these are like Lepel Griffin, Michael MacAuliffe, Sir John Withers McQueen. I found a source by Autar Singh Sandhu published in 1987 that too has coverage on this event on page 79 of book [2], General Hari Singh Nalwa: Builder of the Sikh Empire. Many other historians like Tahir Kamran, Ian Talbot, have depended on Autar Singh Sandhu's secondary works where they used his book General Hari Singh Nalwa: Builder of the Sikh Empire (New Delhi: Uppal Publishing House, 1987). Bobby Singh Bansal has too been depended upon by same historians and more like Himadri Banerjee and William Dalrymple, including academic professors of social sciences and Humanities, Anjali Roy and journalists like Anita Anand. RangersRus (talk) 14:14, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Expected as much from you. Bobby Singh Bansal by no means passes WP:HISTRS, he has zero educational background or training in history, nor does he have any peer reviewed books or journals to his name. His books were all self published. In fact, his current profession is a city councillor. This article makes it abundantly clear that the term "historian" was a self conferred title based on interests as opposed to any educational background.

Autar Singh Sandhu did not publish any book in 1987, the Google Books link your provided is not Autar Singh Sandhu's original work, but rather a reprint by a different publisher. Google Book links are also known to be notoriously unreliable with publication dates. And it seems exceedingly unlikely that someone who wrote a book in 1935-[3], would then write another book on the same subject, 54 years later. There is hardly any information available about Autar Singh Sandhu, apart from the fact that he wrote one book in 1935 about Hari Singh Nalwa; thoroughly unreliable. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 21:21, 19 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Historians like Tahir Kamran, Ian Talbot, have depended on Autar Singh Sandhu's secondary works where they used his book General Hari Singh Nalwa: Builder of the Sikh Empire (New Delhi: Uppal Publishing House, 1987). Bobby Singh Bansal has too been depended upon by same historians and more like Himadri Banerjee and William Dalrymple, including academic professors of social sciences and Humanities, Anjali Roy and journalists like Anita Anand. RangersRus (talk) 12:34, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anjali Roy commented on Bansal's documentary, which was not related to historical claims, but rather on the Sikhs in Afghanistan who recently immigrated to the UK. Himadri Banarjee cited a newspaper column written by Bansal, not his books-[4]. You must also be aware that even if a source is used as reference in a reliable secondary source, it does not automatically make that source reliable by association, it must be judged on its own merits; Khafi Khan is cited hundreds of times in various books, but he cannot be used as a source on Wikipedia for example. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 12:54, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
don't know who Khafi Khan is but if not a secondary source or from 20th century and beyond then inarguably Khafi Khan would be unreliable but not the ones in discussion here. RangersRus (talk) 13:16, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You need to read WP:HISTRS carefully. "Historical scholarship is generally not: Popular works that were not reviewed, especially works by journalists, or memoirs" as well the section "What is "recent" scholarship in history?". In the case of Autar Singh Sandhu, an admin has already determined that 1935 is far too old coupled with the lack of academic reviews and scholarly works by the author. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 13:38, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Jadunath Sarkar sources are used that are as old and its because historians today depend on his secondary work and it is same case with Sandhu. RangersRus (talk) 13:56, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A few cites in later books is nowhere near a mitigating factor since scholarly books cite a large corpus of all sorts of work nor does it prove that historians relied on him in any substantive manner. If that was the case, entering Autar Singh Sandhu's name on the Internet would return far more in depth details and reviews of his work as is the case for Jadunath Sarkar who has an entire Britannica article dedicated to him, as opposed to one Internet archive link to a book. If you insist he is reliable; please provide at the very least one actual scholarly review of his work or at least one other book he authored outside of Hari Singh Nalwa.Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 14:30, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Sandhu is in bibliography and notes of other historians. Maybe not wide known like Jadunath Sarkar but in wikipedia you can use scholarly works where possible and if scholarly works are unavailable, the highest quality commercial or popular works can be used. I have my vote and let's give others space to weigh in with votes too. RangersRus (talk) 14:46, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Mentions in bibliographies is not included as a factor in WP:HISTRS, things like the educational background of the author, whether the work was published by an academic/scholarly institution, and scholarly reviews of the book (regardless of whether the source is an academic or popular work) are. Southasianhistorian8 (talk) 04:01, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 07:41, 25 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, The Herald (Benison) (talk) 21:58, 1 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.